Believing is not the problem. The problem is believing without sufficient evidence, or feeling coerced by a faith system to believe. The problem with belief is the psychological and physical terrorism that all too often accompanies it. We simply have decided that religions should have to stand up to the same standards of evidence we require in every other area of our lives.

[quote author=“As Sam”]It is time we recognize that religious beliefs have consequences. As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that you are a member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to these infidels - and flying a plane into a building is only a matter of being asked to do it. Believe that “life starts at the moment of conception” and you will happily stand in the way of medical research that could alleviate the suffering of millions of your fellow human beings. Believe that there is a God who sees and knows all things, and yet remains so provincial a creature as to be scandalized by certain sexual acts between consenting adults, and you will think it ethical to punish people for engaging in private behavior that harms no one.

There is nothing wrong with believing as long as you don’t sacrifice your rational faculties to do so, or require others suffer for those beliefs they cannot verify.

What is wrong with ‘beleiving’ is that you can’t spell it. If you can’t spell something, you should really spend more time thinking about it before you devote you entire life to it.

Seriously though, what’s wrong with believing is that it is intellectually lazy. You take whatever story you were brainwashed into, which is largely dependent on what part of the world you happened to be born in, and you accept it without giving it as much thought in your entire life as you would give to what car you next want to purchase, and you live your whole life spouting the nonsensical messages that the story put into your head.

Stop believing and start thinking. Spend 15 minutes asking yourself some tough questions about how you came to believe what you believe and whether, deep down, you really buy into it. Or do you just go along with it to avoid social difficulties, like having your neighbors, or your mom, or you daughter’s school teacher, getting upset with you. This is why most people believe, but they are afraid to admit it.

You will never be happy in yourself as long as you subject yourself to a societally-imposed belief system that you know makes no sense. Free yourself from this tyranny and you will be a lot happier.

Fear is the motivating factor in the way in which you, Nietsche, see others driven to belief. I agree with you that thinking is required for a ‘real’ take on what we call reality.

From personal experience I know that when a human is close to ‘calling it quits’ is about the time that that human actually starts to do some critical thinking.

Blasted out of my mind on ‘jet fuel’ (an interesting concoction of Peruvian flake cocaine (long time ago), PCP and massive quantities of damn good ‘Grateful Dead’ (clean) LSD (I was the mixer) (and all my friends loved it too) I saw the yawning mouth of the abyss open up.

IT SCARRED THE LIVING HELL OUT OF ME! For one reason, it would be so easy to let the abyss engulf me…..and yet I understood that the ‘thing’ I called self would cease to exist.

I knew only one way out and I submitted to my Lord, God as signified by Jesus Christ so that I could live today. (What a wimp!)

Tricky thing submitting to Love. Definitely does not help you be a ‘good’ poker player.

I may be crazy, nuttier than a ‘hoot owl, but I made my peace with God and I have lived an extremely fulfilling life that just keeps getting better. And I do not fear death, do not welcome it, but do realize it is inevitable.

And I thank God every day that I have been granted the chance to taste, to smell, to see, to feel, to hear just one more day. Life is just so beautiful!

Your explanation of how you got religion is a little scary. I’m not sure that being blasted out your head on jet fuel is a good basis for belief in anything.

But it sure as hell explains why your posts are so weird.

Take it easy out there, my friend. I’m sure the world is a scary place, and if you need god to replace the jet fuel in your head, then I guess that’s not all bad. But let’s not try to pretend that were discussing objective reality here. We’re on a whole other plane of consciousness, oh yeah.

One night after a serious party I dreamed that Tinky Winkie had chosen me to be his/its mouthpiece in the world. Instead of trying to “turn gay” and then going forth into the world preaching and teaching [TW’s] message as he/it had asked (and stealing Jerry Falwell’s underwear and running them up the White House flagpole). I just wrote it off to the influence of alcohol.

But that’s just me I guess—the way I deal with things like that.

Byron

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“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

“It is time we recognize that religious beliefs have consequences. As a man believes, so he will act”.

Absolutely, unless you’re in denial.

Believe that you are a member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to these infidels - and flying a plane into a building is only a matter of being asked to do it.

Actually religion was initially a cultural initiation practice. You did not belong to the tribe unless you practiced certain rites. it’s just that religion got more sophisticated and God was moved further and further back as more ingnorance was uncovered. The religion has now become a philosophy and a practice of conscience.
The question for today is: what is good conscience?

Believe that “life starts at the moment of conception” and you will happily stand in the way of medical research that could alleviate the suffering of millions of your fellow human beings.

Anyone with brains would realise if you bring into the human genome genetic modifications, you change or dismantle the species. Tough love practiced by eugenicists who suggest breeding should be done by the healthiest (see your local stud farm) is seen to be oh so cruel, while Tough love practiced by the ‘surgeons’ of removing many healthy young lives for the sick old one seems good. I think I’m seeing a homosexual in Sam’s arguements. This is a feminist cause. Abort the baby while I say abort the murderer. You are still left with only one life, but society may have a chance.

Believe that there is a God who sees and knows all things, and yet remains so provincial a creature as to be scandalized by certain sexual acts between consenting adults, and you will think it ethical to punish people for engaging in private behavior that harms no one.

Oh, there you are. Conscience is about being free. If you are lusting into anybody you are imprinted by them. You are not free.
We cannot get into each other. We can respect and appreciate one another. There is an intimacy, but it is never craved. The getting into and drawing out from each other is what homosexuality is about. There is no peace with oneself or the world.
You will write to change it to suit your image, rather than face the demons within.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]
The question for today is: what is good conscience?

Abort the baby while I say abort the murderer. You are still left with only one life, but society may have a chance.

Or maybe not. You are making a choice. The parents that decide to abort make a choice. One has to take responsibilty as they see fit. Barring abortion as a means of birth control, this a heavy decision, one that you provide no grounds for affirming nor denying. You decide to keep the child and kill the mother, and the pro-choice advocate decides the opposite. At least the pro-choice advocate can argue “a bird in hand” sort of line.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]
Oh, there you are. Conscience is about being free. If you are lusting into anybody you are imprinted by them. You are not free.

Newsflash: none of us are completely free. We are all influenced.

Furthermore, please provide support for your subsequent “argument” about homosexuality:

[quote author=“Anonymous”]

We cannot get into each other. We can respect and appreciate one another. There is an intimacy, but it is never craved. The getting into and drawing out from each other is what homosexuality is about. There is no peace with oneself or the world.
You will write to change it to suit your image, rather than face the demons within.

We cannot get into each other. We can respect and appreciate one another. There is an intimacy, but it is never craved. The getting into and drawing out from each other is what homosexuality is about. There is no peace with oneself or the world.
You will write to change it to suit your image, rather than face the demons within.

There are words less used now, like lust and lewd, which describe a person projecting their own sexual needs onto another person. And if the object of desire is consenting we are reliably informed the deed is wholesome. I would disagree. The evidence is in the destructive effect on their personality. The greatest achievement of someone so lacking in character and self esteme is either to rape innocence (the paeodophile experience) or draw out what is lacking (the reassured identity).

We don’t have two or more mature people sharing intimacy, we have planets circulating around each other’s aura until one gets so sick of it they jump ship.

So what are we consenting to? To be masturbated in our fantasies? And what ‘bonding’ mimicry are we playing out? Lying as we lie with our lover. If you were honest with yourself you would be honest with others.

Certainly be friends, enjoy time together, but friends don’t fuck. And those that do see their loyalties for the promiscuous, prostitutes and homosexuals growing. It is like we change and see innocence is ignorance.

I fully sympathise with people born with brains of a different sex to their bodies, and readily agree with speedily supporting their sex change operation. It is just most don’t want to. It is not really a genetic disposition. They like the way they are. They don’t really love who they desire, but are tantalised by what they desire.

Appetites have to start somewhere, and the building into a new identity like a ‘Count de Sade’ has to have an entry point.

Most start as naive confused and vulnerable individuals. Just right to be lobbied by a pro something or other. The stronger force wins. Stonewall is an apt same for such a group.

Very briefly I’ll give three memorable people who have ‘come on’ to me.
A young male wanted me to draw out the assured male essence I had because he had lost the father in him and wanted to be comforted by the father in me. (There is a saying between ‘gays’ that they are disapointed to find there’s a female in the ‘man’ they slept with),
A mature woman wanted me so she could re-live her youth (she was angry her husband left her for a younger model and now she was living her life ‘free’)
An older man wanted me (He was sad and lonely. He was that young man but sadder).

We do sex very badly, and mostly for psychological reasons. But we don’t let the inmates rule the assylum.

Well we do. Look how we give condoms to the South Africans. Once they run out of them a monkey-man has still got to do what he gotta do. So the AIDS disease is spread even more. You’ve trained him. And why? Because when you are beasting someone up the back passage they cannot point a finger at you. You promote promiscuity until everyone is desensitised to it.

Your darkest thoughts become emboldened and what you are enslaved to has become your new found freedom. This is unhealthy psychology. The religions call it ‘The Devil’s Work’.

I have always felt being ‘gay’ is getting into something. I have never believed in it. And to regain the conscience, one has to get out of the nose-bag.
All sexual distractions are escapist in nature because the reproduction is probably the most purposeful thing we will do in our short lives. So it’s “don’t bug me I’m doing something very important”.
It will wane unless you can keep the intrigue and excitement up: “I’ve cut and dyed my hair red, had one navel piercing, tatooed my back, tried the karmasutra….” and so on.

The point is to be calm and see it is self-neglect posing as Pride. If you are not judgemental, then they may log in their deepest part of the brain the acknowledgement there is another way. For their path is down to suffering and empty promise.

When I read the reply to my post:
The [guest] doth [presume] too much, methinks.
Eh?

Byron

I felt a little scared. I read it like he was calling to his troops from the dark side. Not prepared to tangle with any of the ideas. And I thought why give pearls to these people? They are the ones who kill without compulsion a la abortion. You find a prison guard, officious official, a torturer, and a facist; and the worst will be a homosexual.

We are so lucky at the moment to have some freedom, as the Devil is riding on the extreem left and extreem right. The homosexuals on the Left the religious zealots on the Right It is this evidence of wickedness in man that is most haunting. They are both soul killers, and impose their mantra from their own Bibles.

I really hope that no ailien civilizations have yet had the chance to observe our pitiful society. If they have I’m sure they’re all sharing in a good laugh.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we behave in quite a civilized manner. Humans are inventive, we have good immaginations, we like to laugh, we like to cuddle and be cuddled, we enjoy accomplishing tasks that make us feel better about ourselves and most importantly we have compassion towards others.

Our greatest obstacle is humility. We are no where near as speciial as we think we are. There are far more commonalities between humans and animals than there are differences and the differences are minor. Anyone who has ever owned a dog has the evidence to support this view.
Lets take a look:

Biology….......the same: organs,bones,brain etc…
Social life….....the same: some they like and some they don’t but a social group is what protects us and makes us stronger.
Sex life…........the same: hard-on’s don’t occur because you want offspring. We have evolved the process to reproduce - anything else we want to read into it is invented by us. I have no idea what causes homosexuality but I do Know that it occurs with other mammal species.
Emotions….......the same: love, fear, hate, jealousy, pride….

We as a species have the intellect to do great things - personally and as a society. We are held back by pride and fear.

Love may be a primative instinct but it’s a damn good one.
Bed time, more later

And so we have another incohernet rambler - you’re not related to Lawrence by any chance?.

Since I have no idea what you are trying to say, it is hard to critique your rambling. But I do take exception to your description of South Africans as monkey-men, and to your assertion that black people are too busy humping each other up the back passage and too stupid to understand the risk of AIDS. A little racist, don’t you think?

Are you some kind of perfect specimen? Your homophobic, racist and incoherent tirade suggests not. In fact, it sounds a little too defensive - are you perhaps in denial about your true feelings for other men’s back passages? Are you in fact gay?

I think you’re making the common mistake of presuming biology and chemistry can’t govern our behavior as much as they do. Sexuality is about simple (primal) biology and chemistry far more than the higher brain functions and motivations you keep delving into.

I’m not sure why so many people have such a hard time with that (much more so even when it comes to religion, of course), but it seems pretty damn obvious to me (and to biologists, it would seem).

Byron

Signature

“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins